


A Vigil

by MagpieChristine



Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Canon Compliant, Spoilers, Written in My Own Heart's Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 22:17:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17475980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagpieChristine/pseuds/MagpieChristine
Summary: Jamie sits with Claire after she is shot. From Tumblr.





	A Vigil

Claire tossed her head on the pillow and moaned with fever. Jamie replaced the cloth that was laid across her forehead with a cool one. He couldn’t stand seeing Claire like this. Shortly after they were married he had told her that it would take more strength than he had to bear her pain. Some thirty-odd years later, he still felt that way. He prayed constantly, not having anything else he could do that would help.

_Ar n-Athair a tha air nèamh…_

It was not just the fact that Claire was in distress that clenched his wame. It was fear of losing her. _Probably_ she had said when he asked if she was dying. And she was telling the truth. Jamie had faced death, his own and that of others, often enough to know that it was waiting in this room. It was there with every breath that Claire took, and in the agonizing wait to see if she would take another.

_Failte dhut, a Mhoire…_

Jamie took the decoction that Denzil Hunter had left, and dribbled some into Claire’s lips. He kept going, getting her to swallow several spoonfuls, until she moaned and tossed her head to the side once more. He put the cup back down on the counter and prayed again. As his lips moved, his thoughts raced.

_Failte dhut, a Mhoire…_

He had once told her that she did not take things seriously enough. He knew now that she did not do this from a lack of awareness of the presence of death – she had looked death in the eye again and again, with full knowledge. Rather it was that Claire saw death as one more obstacle that could be overcome, one more foe that could be defeated. Having watched her heal, Jamie could not say that she was wrong. 

And yet here she lay.

_Failte dhut, a Mhoire…_

He was unable to take comfort in the fact that she had come through her surgery, and the bleeding had stopped. He had seen enough deaths of fighting men (soldiers, farmers, poor confused boys) to know that wounds killed slowly, with fever, not immediately. Before her surgery, he had been afraid of the pain that she was going to experience. It was now that he was truly afraid of her death.

_A Dhia, I canna live wi’out her. Dinna make me try, laird. I willna.  
_


End file.
